


and so I stay in darkness (with you)

by Rokutagrl



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gods AU, Hades/Persephone AU, M/M, OiKage Week 2018, mentions of death in an ambiguos sense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 00:42:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14344365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rokutagrl/pseuds/Rokutagrl
Summary: Koushi tells him, “That world is not for the likes of us,” and the softness of his voice bites along Tobio’s conscience.“It was a mistake,” he says. “I fell.”But he says nothing on picking himself up, of trudging through dark and dreary halls on whim and fancy.(A Persephone/Hades AU)





	and so I stay in darkness (with you)

**Author's Note:**

> OiKage Week 2018 - Day 2 - Gods AU

Down.  
  
           Down.  
                       
                       Down.   


  
Barely anything comes this deep. Nothing mortal, living, dares; only the foolish.  
  
And the dead.

The underworld is a coil of darkness and rot. Nothing marks their path save but a trail of flowers that spring to life under the pads of Tobio’s feet, but life down here is met only with brevity. Even air barely leaks into the undergrounds, and though it doesn’t bring consequence to immortals, their chests feel tight all the same.  
  
“It feels like a noose,” Shouyo wheezes. He claws, without reason, at the invisible rope on his neck. “I can’t breathe. There’s no air!”

Shadows pass them, their haunting facades illuminated only by the halo of light that hugs to Shouyo’s skin. The further they descend the tighter it clings, until it’s shine falls pale, barely visible.  
  
“Stop wasting it,” Tobio hisses, following close. The sting of death spurs in his chest constantly. At his heels begonia, and cypress, and strawberry buds dry out and wither.  
  
Shouyo turns back, pegging him with an awful glare. His mouth opens to retort – oh, but does he ever shut up?– and instead of words he drops with no warning to his knees. His eyes are wide when he looks back up, dead flowers in the tight clutch of his hands.  Under Shouyo’s warm touch they wither to dust.  
  
“Oh, Tobio…” He whispers, horrified. There is no wind and the ashes only filter through the opening of Shouyo’s fingers,  straight to the dirt. Tobio cannot see very well, but he imagines they will stay right where they fall, every last speck. “Are they dying?”  
  
Without movement to warm him, Tobio shivers. “It’s obvious, imbecile. I told you to stop wasting the air.”  
  
“But –”  
  
A voice cuts through the darkness, a trill of, “My, my,” that sings like the first notes of a songbird before the dawn wakes in the world. “Aren’t you children a little too far from your nest?”  
  
Shouyo bristles visibly.  
  
Shadows do not speak. The death may moan in mimic of their former life, but they do not speak. Tobio is acutely aware of this. This presence around them has a weight, and it fills Tobio’s bones with equal parts dread and wonder.  
  
“Who do you think you are–!” Shouyo yells, a raspy hum of his usual volume. His knees bend and bounce where he crouches, like they are made of tight springs, and Tobio knows the signs when the other is ready to pounce.  
  
But he knows this as well: There is only thing that lives in the underworld.  
  
Tobio grabs for Shouyo’s hand, the warmth of it slight, but sharp on his numb skin and _flees_.    
  
In the world of the living, they breathe.

They breathe and gulp and swallow air as if there is not enough to ever satisfy them. Tobio is not sure any longer if he has lungs, but his chest chokes and stutters all the same.  
  
“What’s the big idea,” Shouyo snarls, panting. Sunlight soaks into his every pore, bleeding warmth with abandon. It feels like a sun bath, being this close to a god of the day. Tobio basks in it. “I could have taken him!”  
  
Tobio coughs.    
  
“We were so close,” he laments. Shouyo scratches wildly at his orange burst of hair and when he groans, it is the sound of a frustrated animal. “So, so, _so_ close. Ryunosuke and Yu won’t believe we were even down there without the Great King’s crown!”  
  
Tobio breathes heavily through his nose. “Were you planning to best the King of the Underworld on his own terf?”  
  
Shouyo rolls his head to look at him and declares, “I could have won. You don’t know that.”

“Idiot.”  


*  
Where the underworld collapses under darkness, the Great Hall of the Upper Realms thrives with light. Sun filters through every opening, stretches around bulbous columns and reflects off clean pottery set high upon shelves above their heads. And though it lacks not in natural light, torches burn every few feet along the path, down the looming hall.  


It is here, every solstice about high noon, that the chamber fills and bustles with Lesser Gods. They come with baggage of presents, of grievances and needs.  


Already sat upon their thrones in a large semicircle at the end of the chamber, the twelve Higher Gods make an imposing lot. Their gazes roam above their heads, synchronized and sharp, and Tobio feels his nerves alight when they pass over him. Though they do not linger, his back straightens to attention.

It is so rare for young gods, especially those fresh from the world of mortals, to be invited to their court, but Koushi insists his talents entitle him to sit through this Year’s last solstice. Shouyo will be surly to learn of it, and it curls Tobio’s lips to imagine his expression.   


“Stay close,” Koushi warns him again and again. His fingers around Tobio’s wrist as he leads him through the throng is a soothing warmth. It does not scold him the way Shouyo’s touch does. “The Higher Gods are volatile. Do not anger them.” He fixes Tobio with a sharp look, “Do not stray from me today.”  
  
Tobio swallows any protest in his throat. Friends, he does not make easily, but enemies attract to him like nickel to a magnet. Shouyo, if he can call him one, is a mistake of some fortune.  Ryunosuke and Yu are friends to all, whether Tobio consents or not to their presence in his life.  
  
The God of Nature is the first smile to greet him in this new life and Tobio treasures it. Under Koushi’s patient tutelage, Tobio blossoms. Perhaps that is friendship, as well, in some way.  
  
“Listen well today,” Koushi instructs him as the ceremonies begin, nudging into his side softly. When he releases Tobio’s hand, thuja foliage bloom in a circlet around his wrist. “It won’t be long before you will be coming here on your own.”  
  
Koushi whispers everything he knows about each of the Gods between each interim of requests. He tells Tobio who to beseech for changes in the weather; how to incline Kyoko, Goddess of the Hunt, to allow him to pursue any of her special game. The knowledge swims in Tobio’s head, nonsensically, and drowns. It will be a while, he thinks, before he will ever raise above Koushi’s level to attend in his stead, for all the faith his mentor places on his shoulders.  
  
As the crowd abates, Tobio notices for the first time a thirteenth member of the Court. His is a presence Tobio cannot fathom to ignore now that he has seen it, just as imposing as the fellow lords, though he misses a throne to sit upon beside their glory. Fastened on his head is a crown that snarls into several points, like wicked horns made of ashened, brittled branches of oak.  
  
Everything in this man is pointed, Tobio believes. His nose, his chin, the look in his eyes as he absorbs each word. When he speaks, Tobio learns this extends to his tongue, words dripping with a wit that is awful and sharp, as tart as the juice of a lemon. Tobio feels his mouth dry to think on it. The familiar pull in his gut warns him first, the sprout of a lemon tree stirring under the pads of his feet. Koushi plucks a thuja leaf from his skin and Tobio focuses on willing a reversion of the life between his toes.  
  
“Tōru.” Koushi whispers to him, words slathered thick with dread as he sees Tobio’s eyes linger on the single dark corner that spoils the Great Hall. “He is the Lord of the Underworld, Tobio. Your antithesis. He destroys all that you create, that I protect.”  
  
He did not glimpse the man when he and Shouyo wandered the nether realms in the dim bits of sunlight smuggled by the latter, but Tobio has often imagined the God of Death to be moribund, distressed under the pressures of time.

He looks no more older than Tobio himself.  
  
“He will be gone soon,” Koushi continues. “This is the one day he is able to come here. His tether to the underworld is strong. You must ask nothing of him, Tobio. You will never meet his price.”  
  
Tobio knows very little still of the bureaucracies of this worlds, but he knows for all the fear,  the blatant disgust, that the other gods show in the quiet of their dwellings towards the Lord of Death, there is a respect just as true, for when he speaks the room quiets to listens, and even Tobio hangs off his words with a ferocity he does not question.  
  
When he meets the eyes of the Great King of the Underworld across the Great Hall, Tobio feels the chill of death shudder through his very core.  
  
*  
The second time Tobio journeys through the valley of death, it is not of his own accord.  
  
The Solstice Treaty grants the Night Gods their monopoly of the sky between the interim months of Court, until the Sun Gods regain strength from the Mid Year Solstice onwards.  
  
The youngest among their ranks, Kei, is a natural born God with a fondness only for stars, cares nothing for politics. Tobio finds him to be pompous, and poor company, but often this is inconsequential to him.    
  
This night is not the case.  
  
He thinks Kei may be aware of his attendance at Court for the Year’s End ceremonies – word in the Upper Realms travels like light – and it fills Tobio with a sickening pleasure to know that this knowledge has soured this particular Moon God’s mood, for when Tobio makes an ill advised trip in the midnight hours through the forest for a drink of water, moonbeams do not light his path. They sit atop the trees, pale light glittering off the leaves like dew, but extend no further on the trail. Bushes rustle around him, rocks skittering under blind steps. Animals snarl and panic; the lack of light is chaos in the woods at night. There is little doubt Kei’s prank will fetch him a heavy price. Tobio grins.  
  
It is in this way, that he does not realize his path to the drinking pool has been off-charted by an  impromptu stroll straight to the throne room of the Lord of Death himself until he has already come upon it. Perhaps he had known, deftly in his soul, that the ditch he had tripped over hours before was an entrance to the Nether Realms, the stench of despair and prickle of death accompanying him, replacing the presence of wildlife. He should have been more aware, truly, for the drinking pool should not have taken more than a few minutes.    
  
The throne room would not be much different from the rest of this world, except the walls here are lined with flames that spark in blues and greens, casting a sickly glow on everything it lights.  The throne itself is ornate; the image of flames, reverberating on metal and jewels emblazoned in bones and skulls, dance before Tobio’s vision. The crown of the Nether World itself tilts precariously on a pointed edge and his fingers twitch with the immense urge to grab for it, to prove to Ryunosuke and Yu that he truly has scavenged to the darkest reaches of all the lands. It will teach them, for calling him a liar.  
  
“The upper realms are brimming with gods and mortals,” a familiar trill starts behind him, “so why must you foolishly pester me in my home so often?”  
  
Perhaps his skin should crawl with more than the damp and cold. Dread should revisit in his chest, like the first time he had pulled Shouyo back. But there had only been darkness then. Death had been but a concept. Now, Tobio has seen him and it is only wonder that creeps along his chest, pulls down and hitches his breath.  
  
Tōru holds a singular dead bud between his fingers, presumably from the trail Tobio has left behind him. He twists his wrist to look at it from every angle, and ashes spill on his robes as it spirals into dust.  
  
“It cannot be pleasant for you down here.” Tōru’s eyes spark with recollection as he rubs the   detritus from his fingers coolly. “I’ve heard mortals speak of one’s like you. Does it bring you pleasure to cause yourself pain?”  
  
“No,” Tobio says smartly. His voice stubbornly stutters, but he stands with his chin raised, back straight.    
  
Tōru snorts. The chamber door closes behind him with a thunderous clap and disturbs a stale scent in the closed room. “Is it my counsel you seek, then?”  
  
Tobio shakes his head.  
  
“Oh~?” Light lays gently on the other’s face, softens the edge of every point.  
  
“It was an accident,” Tobio swears. “I was in the forest, and then I was here.”  
  
Tōru laughs. It is boisterous, and humorless. “Nobody comes here by accident,” he says.  Dark creeps into his eyes, his lips curving tightly. The torches flare and crackle over head, swelling his silhouette against the wall. It is now Tobio notices that souls do not even wander this far.  
  
“I did,” Tobio asserts.  
  
“What was your true aim?”  
  
The dryness in his throat reminds him. “Water, ” Tobio says. “I was fetching something to drink and fell into a ditch.”  
  
“Water?” Surprise flashes over him briefly. “I’d forgotten those who are from the mortal world still hold on to their mortality.”  
  
“Koushi says it will pass.”  
  
“He doesn’t lie.”  
  
Tōru stalks around him, sizing Tobio with his eyes as he passes. He removes the thorny crown from its perch and places it upon his head.  
  
A king with the audience of only one, he sits dutifully on his throne, legs crossed and a single arm propped up on the ledge. He hides a grin beneath his fingers but Tobio sees it reflect in his stare. Tōru lifts his other hand, flicking it to dismiss him.    
  
“Your time here is up, wanderer.”  
  
Tobio opens his mouth to protest, but his body is willed away by a current he cannot fight. The chamber doors draw open once more on their own, and beyond them the world is bathed brightly in sunshine. A hand reaches for him over the threshold, and pulls him over the worlds.  
  
It is Koushi, backlit by dawn and smelling of fresh pine and game and life.  
  
He shivers to touch Tobio’s skin, his fingers burning where they curl over the plump of his cheek. “Your lips are so blue,” he murmurs. He wraps Tobio in deer skins and pulls him taut, the tickle of his silver hair on the tip of Tobio’s nose.  
  
Koushi tells him, “That world is not for the likes of us,” and the softness of his voice bites along Tobio’s conscience.  
  
“It was a mistake,” he says. “I fell.”  
  
But he says nothing on picking himself up, of trudging through dark and dreary halls on whim and fancy.

“Be careful,” Koushi says, soothingly.  
  
His teeth chatter and Tobio curls inward. It is strange, he thinks, for he had not known how cold he was until there was warmth. He wonders if Tōru feels much like this too, at the Year’s End Solstice. He imagines how cold it must be, to return to the pits of the Underworld, with nothing but the fleeting taste of sunlight as his only companion.  
  



End file.
